HBA-CMT H.B. 3181 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 3181 By: Danburg Elections 3/19/2001 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Currently, the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is required to prepare an abstract of felony convictions of person's 18 years of age or older each month, and deliver that abstract to the person's county registrar. The registrar of the county is required to deliver to the secretary of state, on or after the first day but before the 16th day of January, March, June, September, and December of each year a list containing each new registration, canceled registration, and change in registration information that has occurred in the county since the delivery of the previous list. This current procedure can be slow and may not allow for the master record with the secretary of state to be as up to date as it could be. House Bill 3181 provides for improvement of the current procedures for maintaining the voter registration master rolls in the state. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. ANALYSIS House Bill 3181 amends the Election Code to require the Department of Public Safety (DPS) to prepare each week rather than each month an abstract of each final judgement convicting a person who is 18 years of age or older and a resident of this state of a felony, and to file each abstract with the secretary of state (secretary) no later than one week following the week in which the abstract is prepared. The secretary is required to file each received abstract with the voter registrar of the person's county of residence no later than one week following the week in which the abstract was received. Once each week, each county registrar is required to deliver to the secretary of state a list containing each new registration, canceled registration, and change of registration information that has occurred in the county since the delivery of the previous list if that county registrar has not contracted with the secretary for electronic registration data services. The secretary is required to use the information to identify any voters in the master file that may be duplicated, deceased, or ineligible because of a felony conviction. The secretary is required to notify the registrar of the appropriate county of any voter included in the master file that may be duplicated, deceased, or ineligible because of a felony conviction. The bill requires the secretary to prescribe procedures as necessary to implement these provisions. The bill authorizes state funds to be disbursed for the financing of voter registration only to defray expenses of the registrar's office in connection with voter registration, including additional expenses related to complying with the weekly updating requirements. H.B. 3181 requires that once each week, DPS is to electronically transfer to the secretary the name of each person who completes a voter registration application submitted to DPS. The secretary is required to prescribe procedures to implement the electronic transfer. The secretary is also required to inform the appropriate voter registrar of the name of each person who completes a voter registration application submitted to DPS no later than the seventh day after the secretary receives the information. The registrar is authorized to verify that the registrar has received each application as indicated by the information provided by the secretary. EFFECTIVE DATE January 1, 2002.